As can be expected of an album inspired by a mother’s death, Sufjan Stevens’ latest is an unabashed, quietly intense, and heartbreaking album. But, Stevens doesn’t dilute his introspection with an attempt to be universally understood. Carrie & Lowell is not an album for us. It’s an anthology of sweetly-sung reflection elucidated for the sake ...

If the album’s name didn’t give it away, the years preceding the Arcade Fire’s exceptional debut album were filled with death. Family members of the band ‘kept dying’, according to the album’s liner notes, which cleverly mimic the bi-fold handout oft present at funerals. In this time of death, the band realized they should call their first album Funeral. ...